David Kaplan. Director of Photography is Brett Pawlak. Edited by Nat Sanders. Production design

by Rachel Myers. Original Music by Joel P. West. Costume Design by Mirren Gordon-Crozier and Joy

Cretton.

“After I graduated from college, I couldn’t find work, and a friend of mine mentioned agroup home for at-risk teenagers that was hiring. It was by far, one of the scariestexperiences I’ve ever had – at first. I was really afraid of doing something wrong and messingup these kids more than they already were. But after a month or so, I fell in love with it.», saysDestin Cretton. This is an experience that stuck with the director. A few years later, he created a 20-minuteshort for his thesis project, titled Short Term 12 – based on his experiences at the home. Thefilm went on to win the Jury Prize at Sundance in 2009 – and prompted Cretton to make afeature version. “I was kind of a novice filmmaker, and somebody told me that if you weregoing to Sundance, you’d better have a feature script ready. So I wrote one.” That scripteventually found its way to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where it wasone of five scripts in 2010 to win the Nicholl Fellowship. “That was a big stamp of approval,”he says. FINDING GRACE Brie Larson, who was filming another project in Georgia, was sent the script, and immediatelyconnected. “Within 10 pages, it was just a role that really spoke to me,” the actress says. “Ifelt it had a lot of great architecture to it, and was just a big space for me to work and playwith.” She and Cretton spoke via Skype, and, says the director, “I saw Grace very quickly inher. She was really funny, but she also had something about her that was extremelythoughtful. She would stop and think about things, and it was in those moments where I sawa combination of intensity and lightness, and I knew she would kick ass as Grace. And shedid.” The actress immediately dove in to develop her character, the director notes. “Sheworked her tail off to get under Grace’s skin, and it was a joy to watch. She asked smartquestions and devoured as much information as she could, to become an expert not ongroup homes, but on Grace – and the different things she could be feeling at every moment.It’s the reason her performance is believable and realistic – she had a specific take on everything for her. She never does the same thing twice. Grace is continually walking the lineof being extremely vulnerable and being an extremely strong woman. And that’s difficult toportray.” A LIGHT TOUCH “Humor is very much a part of the reality of the group home setting – it’s part of survivalthere. My character is kind of an anchor, in a lot of ways, for a lot of the mayhem that’s goingon around, both with things going on with the kids and with Grace.”, agrees John GallagherJR, who plays Mason “It’s something that I noticed when I went and visited one of the grouphomes. The line staff keep it very light – nothing inappropriate, but they joke with the kids,try to keep a friendly, happy, easygoing environment.”